Washington Nationals Injury Updates: Starlin Castro has surgery on wrist; Sean Doolittle throws; Still no Howie Kendrick on Friday...

While the big news out of Davey Martinez’s pregame press conference yesterday dealt with the second opinion on the nerve issue in Stephen Strasburg’s right hand, and what they do next, the Washington Nationals’ third-year skipper did provide updates on some other ailing members of the Nats’ roster...

CASTROCTOBER:

Starlin Castro broke his wrist last Friday in Baltimore, and according to Martinez, he went for surgery on the wrist yesterday. He’ll have a pin inserted to speed along the healing.

“Starlin is having surgery today. So we’ll get an update after his surgery,” the manager said, but Castro’s first season with the club after signing a 2-year/$12M effectively ended with the injury, though he told the skipper last week that he’d be ready to return in October if the club makes it to the postseason.

Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images

DOOING WORK:

Sean Doolittle, who went on the 10-Day Injured List on August 13th, (retroactive to Aug. 11), with right knee fatigue, threw in a sim game at the Nationals’ Alternate Training Site on Friday and he felt fine afterwards.

“Doo threw a 24-pitch sim game,” Martinez told reporters, “said he felt pretty good, so we’ll see how he feels tomorrow and then we’ll go from there, but he said he felt good.”

HOWIE SURVIVING WITHOUT HOWIE:

Friday night made it six games in a row without Howie Kendrick in the lineup. Martinez said earlier this week that they were hoping the 36-year-old, 15-year veteran would be back for the series opener with the Marlins, but Kendrick is still working on the hamstring issue(s) which have kept him on the bench.

Photo by Alex Trautwig/MLB Photos via Getty Images

“He’s progressing,” Martinez said on Friday afternoon. “He’s out there running right now, so I’ll get more informations when he comes back in.

“With Howie, like I said before, we’ve got to make sure we take care of him. We don’t want this to become a bigger issue.

“The other day he said he was about 75-80%, so that was encouraging, so we’ll see how he feels today, and he’s going to let me know.

“I’m hoping that, with that being said, that he’d be available to pinch hit today, and being that we have two games tomorrow maybe playing one of the games, but we’ll see how he feels after he runs.”

NO COVID SCARE:

Miami’s series finale with the New York Mets was postponed on Thursday after positive tests for COVID-19 on the Mets’ side, but in spite of the fact that the Fish were playing their divisional rivals at the time, Martinez said before the series opener in D.C. yesterday that he didn’t have any concerns about the fact that the Marlins were now in the nation’s capital.

”No. I’m sure MLB has done all their protocols with the Marlins, so apparently they’re here so they deemed them safe to play.

“We just got to worry about going out there and playing the game. I didn’t hear anything from MLB or anything, so we’re getting ready to play.”